A
kiss on the hand might be quite continental
But diamonds are a girl’s best friend
Marilyn Monroe

When I was a teenager, a kiss was the only sexual act you dared to discuss with
your mother. The popular girls doled out their kisses as if they were diamonds
and the boys compared stories on how difficult it was to coax the nubile maidens
of the day to offer their lips for osculation. If you were too eager and anxious
to offer your affection (that is how we termed the naked lust our raging
hormones poured into us) you were labeled fast, a killing term that seemed to
spread faster than small pox through our mother’s telephone lines and over
afternoon coffee. My mother impressed me with the terrible dangers of a kiss
when I was twelve years old. “Never EVER kiss a stranger,” she told me.
“Especially the handsome ones and those are the hardest to resist.. Kissing can
give you disgusting diseases. Do you remember Mrs. Goodman’s daughter?”

“You mean the fat one with all the pimples?” I asked.

My mother nodded. “That’s the one,” she said. “She got that terrible skin
because she let every boy in her class make love to her.”

“Did that make her fat too?” I asked.

My mother pursed her lips. “You could say that,” she said. “It was why she had
to spend last winter with her Aunt Bertha in Ypsilanti.”

I paled. It wasn’t a week before this that Buddy Glazer had pinned me against
the closet door and nuzzled his face against mine. I had pulled away from him
because his breath was dense and thick as rotten crab shells. Only now did I
realize how narrowly I had escaped the total destruction of my figure, and my
complexion not to mention a six-month exile to some hick town where they didn’t
have a movie theater.

Buddy Glaser was very good looking and every time I saw him my heart fluttered
in a very disturbing way. I would have liked to do a lot more than kiss him but
I wasn’t sure what procedures people did with handsome boys because my mother
never got beyond the Kissing Threat. She must have thought that if I didn’t get
kissed, I wouldn’t get caught. She made it very clear that there were no
exceptions to her NO SMOOCHING rule. “When you get a little older, you can let
the boys kiss your cheek IF they treat you to dinner and a movie, but never let
any of them get near your lips, Lynn Ruth. That’s how you get those infections I
was telling you about. I remember when I was young, Wanda Gruber let the boys
kiss her so much she lost all her teeth.”

That convinced me. I had spent the last four years enduring braces on my teeth
so I wouldn't have buck-teeth and I wasn’t going to lose them now because of one
moment’s indiscretion. For the next three years, I allowed no member of the male
species including the dog, to touch any part of me not protected by several
layers of clothing. When I discussed my terror of the act with my friend Normie
Odesky, she said, “Your mother is crazy, Lynn Ruth. If a guy is really cute
looking and turns you on, you would be an idiot not to let him kiss you all he
wants. Don’t you ever want to have babies?”

I paled. “You mean kissing does *that*, too?” I said. “I thought it just gave
you pimples and destroyed your teeth. ”

Normie laughed. “You are talking about CHOCOLATE ,” she said.

“Oh no I’m not,” I said.

When I was fifteen years old, my mother permitted me to go out on chaperoned
dates. I never forgot the disastrous consequences of my lips touching those of
the male gender, of course. When my escorts brought me home from a movie or a
dance, I shook their hands, bid them good night and galloped to the nearest sink
to wash my hands with disinfectant soap. After all what if their hands had
touched their lips?

That November I had begun going to parties with a boy named Larry Bershon. I
wasn’t worried about the kissing problem with him because he was so homely, he
couldn’t have turned on a snail. He was shaped like a large schmoo with a
sagging tummy, a bald head and eyes that popped out of his head. His backside
curve looked like a continuation of his stomach’s and his nickname was “Buckets”
for reasons all to obvious if he was ever viewed from the rear. That was why I
accepted his offer to take me out New Year’s Eve. My mother had said it was
handsome boys who presented the real danger to my health. Boys that looked like
cartoon characters were no problem. It was easy to say no to them.

My mother must have agreed with me because she was delighted that Larry was
taking me out that night. “Your father and I have a dinner party to go to, Lynn
Ruth,” she said. “And Marsha is sleeping at Katrina’s house. I am so relieved
that you’ll be with someone safe like Larry Bershon. His father is president of
Lucas County Bank so be nice to him. Daddy would love to get that account.”

Larry appeared at our door at nine o’clock dressed like a penguin. I had on my
silver taffeta strapless dress with the permanent pleated bodice so no one would
know what was me and what was wadded cotton. He looked me over with a decidedly
salacious leer and said, “You look good enough to eat, Lynn Ruth.”

I sensed danger ahead. “I had been counting on our both eating steaks and baked
potatoes.”

“We can do that first,” said Larry. ”You can be my dessert and I’ll be yours.”

There were four couples waiting for us at the Secor when we arrived and we ate,
danced and ordered ginger ale that we spiked with bourbon from the paper bagged
bottle Larry had tucked in his coat pocket. The hours melted away until the band
played Auld Lang Syne and Larry wrapped his arms around me to welcome 1950.

This was it! I was about to receive my very first safe kiss. I wrapped my arms
around his neck sure that any loving I got from this funny looking person would
do me absolutely no harm. The bells rang, the drums rolled and everyone yelled,
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

Larry looked back at the table and unwrapped my arms from around his neck.
“Hurry Lynn Ruth!” he said. “The waiter just brought our dessert! If we get
there before the others come back, we can eat their portions too! My mother says
this is the best chocolate cake on the planet.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. After the half dozen bourbons and ginger ales I had
downed, Larry Bershon looked very handsome to me and I knew what that meant. I
looked at the cake and frowned “There’s no ice cream on mine,” I said. “I asked
for a la mode.”

“Just eat what they served you, “ said Larry. “You wont be disappointed. “

The two of us managed to finish off four helpings before everyone returned to
the table and then Larry pulled me to him and gave me my very first kiss. It was
warm and sweet and very comforting. “You taste delicious!” I said and he smiled.

“That, Lynn Ruth,” is your a la mode.”

I hugged him and kissed him back. “And that’s yours,” I said. “Happy New Year.”